


Simplicity

by Rasiaa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasiaa/pseuds/Rasiaa
Summary: The morning of his sixteenth birthday starts at five am.
Relationships: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Simplicity

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get back into writing simple things; most of what I write now isn't even close to ready for publishing, if it ever will be.
> 
> Inspired by a couple of things:
> 
> "Rainbow Cake" by Catlaxy on deviantart - https://www.deviantart.com/catlaxy/art/Rainbow-Cake-801325853  
> I'd look up the picture to get an idea of what I was picturing while writing this.
> 
> Solve the rubiks cube challenge/comp over on HPFC - prompt: romance
> 
> and also on HPFC, the packets of prompts challenge - prompt: birthday

Since the war, Slytherin has suffered pretty badly.

Getting sorted into the snake house is basically a one-way ticket to the art of being a complete social reject. People want to avoid that. Albus sometimes wonders if people realize how brave Slytherins have to be to not argue their way into one of the other Houses at their Sorting.

He doesn't resent it. Having barely fifty people in the entire House across all seven years means that their common room is very quiet. It's peaceful. Everyone knows everyone and since they all face the reality of being totally blacklisted, everyone is taken care of.

What he does kind of resent, however, is that since he and Scorpius have a bit of a reputation that was so graciously given to them by their parents, they wound up being the social rejects of the social rejects.

But whatever. The two of them are the only Slytherin boys in their year, and there's two girls--Willow and Abigail, and those two are good friends. It balances out.

He and Scorpius have the dorm to themselves. They get away with a lot.

It's usually fairly dark in the dungeons, for obvious reasons. As far as Albus understands, the other Houses don't have automatic alarms that go off at six every morning, even the weekends, which is really fucking unfair.

It's gotten to the point where, in the middle his sixth year, Albus just wakes up at five every single day whether he wants to or not. Whether he's in school or not also seems to be irrelevant. He'd trained himself to do so in his first year to avoid the masses as much as possible; very few students are at the Great Hall when it actually opens for breakfast.

The morning of his sixteenth birthday he most definitely doesn't want to be awake before the ungodly alarm. It's too fucking bad, he's resigned to note, because he opens his eyes and looks at the clock and sees those blasted numbers looking back anyway. He groans and lays his head back down, but there's no point; he's always been the type to just naturally be wide awake the minute he opens his eyes. He's up for the day now.

It's Saturday, which is the only lucky thing about it.

Scorpius is beside him, fast asleep. After knowing him for so long, Albus knows he's going to stay that way for hours yet. Taking pity on him, he silences the alarm and slides out of bed.

"Allie?" Scorpius murmurs, sounding confused. He glances behind him and smiles, turning back around to press a kiss to his boyfriend's forehead.

"Go back to sleep," he says softly. Having not been very awake in the first place, Scorpius just hums and drifts off again.

As he does most mornings--Scorpius usually sleeps through breakfast with the excuse that eating that early makes him sick--he gets ready for the day in silence.

Checking that Scorpius is still asleep--which of course he is--Albus takes a book from the desk in the corner of the dorm and slips out the door.

Because it's a Saturday, no one else is up. Albus knows this, has known this for years now. He heads into the common room, settles into an alcove seat, and opens the book.

For all that he hates getting up so early, it's always his favorite part of the day. It's a few hours that he has to himself, where he can think and study and just _be_ without being bothered.

People start making noise at around nine, which makes him sigh and shut the book again. He has a few pages left, so he goes to the dorm to finish. Scorpius is still out of it, only now he's curled around Albus' pillow and drooling.

Albus makes a note to needle at him later about it but leaves him alone for now. He sits at the desk and keeps reading.

There's a knock at the door, which makes his head snap up. "Hello?" he calls, wary and confused.

A familiar face leans around the door. "Hey, Allie," she says, and Albus relaxes and smiles.

"Morning, Willow," he answers. "What's up?"

"Wanted to wish you a happy birthday." She walks into the room and hands him a box. "Abigail and I saw this last weekend in Hogsmeade."

This isn't unusual; having only four people representing Slytherin for their year means that they've been exchanging gifts for appropriate holidays for a couple of years now. He sends her and Abigail something for Christmas every year.

"Thanks," he says--it might be routine but he's never felt anything but awkward when it comes to gift exchange.

"Open it," she urges, so he does.

He first sees a bar of chocolate from Honeydukes, which he expected, and underneath that is a book about dragons--which he finds odd until he sees it was written by a Muggle. "Oh, excellent," he says. He flips it over to read the synopses. "Muggles come up with the wildest things."

"And this was apparently imported from America, so it'll be extra wild," Willow says excitedly. "Will you tell me about it when you're done?"

"Sure," he agrees. "Tomorrow evening, then?"

She laughs. "If you can read it that fast. It's like six hundred pages."

"But it's Sunday tomorrow, which means that I'll have a ton of free time."

Her eyebrows go up. "You've finished the Charms essay?"

"Yesterday," he says. He turns and picks up the books he'd used from the desk. "Here. If you've finished, give them to Abigail; she certainly hasn't."

"You'd be right," Willow agrees. "Thanks." She glances at the clock. "Well, I'd best get going--breakfast ends in like fifteen minutes and I'd like to be able to steal something from the table."

"No doubt. Good luck."

"Yeah, thanks. Happy birthday again, Albus."

He smiles at her again and sees her out, shutting the door behind her with a sigh.

"That was fun," Scorpius says unexpectedly. Albus nearly jumps out of his skin, turning to stare as Scorpius sits up with a yawn. "You could've spoken quietly, you know."

"Oh, whatever. You need to get up anyway--it's nearly ten."

"And you've been up for--" Scorpius yawns again, rubbing his eyes. "--for hours, no doubt."

"Five am," he agrees. Scorpius scowls.

"Dear Merlin, that's completely mental. Why, Allie? Why do you do such terrible things?"

Albus smirks and makes his way over. "Result of being in Slytherin, obviously. Corruption runs deep, you know."

"Ha ha," Scorpius says sarcastically. "You'd be a complete lunatic no matter what House you're in, getting up before the sun on a _Saturday_."

"Yes, yes, you've said this before."

Scorpius opens his mouth to reply but Albus sits on the bed and kisses him before he can form the words. There's no protest; Scorpius pulls him closer with a hum of approval.

They don't make it to breakfast, or lunch, for that matter.

...

"I want to show you something," Scorpius says, about an hour before curfew.

"Oh?" Albus inquires, looking to his right.

He and Scorpius have basically wasted the day in bed, and they only put clothes on to go to dinner. An owl had accosted him the minute he stepped into the Great Hall, bearing a gift from his parents--read, his mother, because he and his father _do not_ get along at all _ever_ , despite their attempts to fix their relationship, and as a result it seems like they hardly know each other.

A few more owls had shown up not long after--his grandparents, Teddy and Victoire, his godfather Neville, his aunt Hermione--who signed for his uncle Ron as well, as if he would believe that Uncle Ron would voluntarily get him anything--and the Malfoys had all sent birthday gifts. And that was all; he considers himself lucky that even those few family members remember that he _exists_ , never mind when he was born. Scorpius seems more offended by this fact than Albus is.

He's been looking over the Muggle camera his aunt sent with curiosity for the past thirty minutes. She'd sent instructions, but when he can't figure out which button actually adjusts for dark lighting, the pictures he's taken as experiments haven't turned out well.

"Yeah, come on," Scorpius says, and takes the camera. He sets it on their nightstand and pulls at Albus' hands impatiently. "It's nearly curfew so we have to be quick."

"Why'd you wait so long, then?" he asks, deciding to humor the blond. Scorpius tugs him out of their dorm, through the common room, and out into the hallways.

"Because I had to be sure it was ready," he says cryptically.

He recognizes their destination after a few minutes. "The kitchens?" he asks, bemused. "You know, Scorpius, I've been here once or twice before."

"Shut up," is the immediate answer. "It's _in_ the kitchens, obviously."

"Obviously," Albus echoes absently, watching as Scorpius tickles the pear in the painting and the door swings open.

There's a table in the middle of the room. The table cloth is a soft sheen of silver, reflecting the sparklers on the cake sitting in the center of the table. Albus is staring at it in wonder; it's got white frosting simply _covered_ in rainbow sprinkles and candy. "Wow," he breathes.

The house elves on the edge of the scene mutter in pleasure as they disperse, satisfied in a job well done.

"Had them make that for you," Scorpius says. "Blow out the sparklers so we can bring it to the dorm. I'll cast a concealment charm so no one tries to steal it."

Albus looks at him fondly and does as he's told. The kitchens go dark when the sparklers are no longer lit, so he pulls out his wand. " _Lumos_ ," he whispers under his breath.

Scorpius wraps his arm around his waist and kisses his temple. "Com'on, love," he says.

They get the cake to their dorm easily enough; most people were in bed by the time they got back. They got into the common room two minutes before curfew, much to the annoyance of Professor Neville Longbottom, who had been nearby. Albus winked at him with a smirk. Neville just shook his head. "Happy birthday, Albus," he'd said, and Albus thanked him just as the stone wall slid back into place.

The door to their dorm clicks shut behind them. Scorpius sets the cake on the desk and pulls out a plastic plate and two forks--where he got them, Albus doesn't know. He uses a cutting spell to actually cut the cake, which is a novel experience--Albus had never considered that before.

"Here," Scorpius says, and hands him the plate with a slice on it. Albus is shocked to discover that it's layered, and each layer is a different color of the rainbow.

"You went all out with this, huh?" Albus says. "It looks great."

"It's just white cake with food coloring," Scorpius says, but he looks pleased. "Besides, the house elves did it."

Albus looks at him. Scorpius stares back, and then smiles. "Happy birthday, love," he says. Albus sets the cake down and pulls him into a kiss.


End file.
